7th Grade Reading List

Highlander Way Library Seventh Grade Reading List

The books listed below are just a small percentage of the proven seventh grade favorites that are available at the Highlander Way Library.

FIC PAT
Paterson, James. Saving the world and other extreme sports. [2007]

The time has come for max, Fang, Iggy, Nudge, Gasman, and Angel to face their ultimate enemy and, despite many obstacles, try to save the world from a sinister plan to re-engineer a select population into a scientifically superior master race.

FIC AVI
Avi. Crispin : the cross of lead. Hyperion, [2002].

Falsely accused of theft and murder, an orphaned peasant boy in fourteenth -century, medieval England flees his village and meets a larger-than-life juggler who holds a dangerous secret.

PAP A
Avi. The true confessions of Charlotte Doyle. New York : Orchard Books, [1990].

As the lone "young lady" on a transatlantic voyage in 1832, Charlotte learns that the captain is murderous and the crew rebellious.

FIC AVI
Avi. Nothing but the truth : a documentary novel. New York : Orchard Books, [1991].

A ninth-grader's suspension for singing "The Star-Spangled Banner" during homeroom becomes a national news story.

FIC AVI
Avi. The barn. New York : Orchard Books, [1994].

Note: In an effort to fulfill their dying father's last request, nine-year-old Ben and his brother and sister construct a barn on their land in the Oregon Territory.

FIC AVI
Avi. Wolf rider: A tale of terror. New York : MacMillian Inc, [1986].

After receiving an apparent crank call from a man claiming to have committed a murder, Andy finds his close relationship with his father crumbling as he struggles to make everyone believe him.

FIC AVI
Avi. Beyond the western sea : Book one: Escape from home. New York : Orchard Books, [1996].

Driven from their impoverished village, Maura and her younger brother meet their landlord's son in Liverpool while all three wait for a ship to America .

FIC AVI
Avi. Beyond the western sea : Book two: Lord Kirkle's money. New York : Orchard Books, [1996].

Driven from their impoverished village, Maura and her younger brother meet their landlord's son in Liverpool while all three wait for a ship to America . Now,(in book two) their fates continue to intertwine, on board ship and in the new world.

FIC AVI
Avi. Perloo the bold. New York : Scholastic Signature, [1999, 1998].

Perloo, a peaceful scholar who has been chosen to succeed Jolaine as leader of the furry underground people called the Montmers, finds himself in danger when Jolaine dies and her evil son seizes control of the burrow.

FIC BAB

Babbitt, Natalie. Goody Hall. [1st ed.]. New York : Farrar, Straus & Giroux, [1971].

The new tutor at Goody Hall is pleased with his job but can't help feeling there is something peculiar about the household.

FIC BAB
Babbitt, Natalie. The search for delicious. New York : Farrar, Straus and Giroux, [1969].

The Prime Minister is compiling a dictionary and when no one at court can agree on the meaning of delicious, the King sends his twelve-year-old messenger to poll the country.

FIC BAB
Babbitt, Natalie. Tuck everlasting. 1st ed. New York : Farrar, Straus, Giroux, [1975].

The Tuck family is confronted with an agonizing situation when they discover that a ten-year-old girl and a malicious stranger now share their secret about a spring whose water prevents one from ever growing any older.

FIC BAU
Bauer, Marion Dane. Land of the buffalo bones : the diary of Mary Ann Elizabeth

Rodgers, an English girl in Minnesota . 1st ed. Scholastic, [2003].

Fourteen-year-old Polly Rodgers keeps a diary of her 1873 journey from England to Minnesota as part of a colony of eighty people seeking religious freedom, and of their first year struggling to make a life there, led by her father, a Baptist minister.

FIC BAU
Bauer, Marion Dane. Rain of fire. New York : Clarion Books, [1983].

When Steve's older brother Matthew, returning home after service in World War II, refuses to talk about his wartime experiences, Steve's friends begin to doubt the stories he has told of Matthew's heroism.

FIC BAU
Bauer, Marion Dane. On my honor. [1986].

When his best friend drowns while they are both swimming in a river they had promised never to go near, Joel is devastated to have to tell both sets of parents the consequences of their disobedience.

FIC BEA
Beatty, John Louis and Beatty, Patricia. Who comes to King's mountain? Morrow, [1975].

Living in the South Carolina hills in 1780, a young Scottish boy, whose own family is divided between Loyalist and rebel, must decide for himself which side he will follow.

FIC BEA
Beatty, Patricia. Lupita Mañana. Beech Tree Books, [1992].

To help her poverty-stricken family, thirteen-year-old Lupita enters California as an illegal alien and starts to work while constantly on the watch for "la migra.".

FIC BRO
Brooks , Bruce . Vanishing. [1999].

Eleven-year-old Alice is unwilling to return to live with her alcoholic mother and her stern stepfather, so she refuses to eat to the point of slowly starving herself, in order to remain in the hospital.

FIC BRO
Brooks , Bruce . What hearts. [1992].

After his mother divorces his father and remarries, Asa's sharp intellect and capacity for forgiveness help him deal with the instabilities of his new world.

FIC BRO
Brooks , Bruce . The moves make the man. [1984].

A black basketball player and an emotionally troubled white shortstop form a precarious friendship.

FIC BUN
Bunting, Eve. The ghosts of Departure Point. Lippincott, [1982].

After a car plunges over a dangerous cliff, killing its four teenage occupants, one of the four returns as a ghost, tormented by guilt and wishing somehow to prevent another tragedy.

FIC BUN
Bunting, Eve and Wiesner, David. Night of the gargoyles. Clarion Books, [1994].

In the middle of the night, the gargoyles that adorn the walls of a museum come to life and frighten the night watchman.

FIC BUN
Bunting, Eve. Someone is hiding on Alcatraz Island . Berkley Books, [1994].

When he offends the toughest gang in his San Francisco school, Danny tries to elude them by going to Alcatraz only to find himself and a Park Service employee trapped by the gang in an old prison cell block.

FIC BUN
Bunting, Eve. Blackwater. Joanna Cotler Books, [2000, 1999].

When a boy and girl are drowned in the Blackwater River , thirteen-year-old Brodie must decide whether to confess that he may have caused the accident.

FIC BYA
Byars, Betsy Cromer and Howell, Troy . The night swimmers. Delacorte Press, [1980].

With their mother dead and their father working nights, Retta tries to be mother to her two younger brothers but somehow things just don't seem to be working right.

FIC BYA
Byars, Betsy Cromer. The pinballs. Harper & Row, [1977].

Three lonely foster children learn to care about themselves and each other.

FIC COM
Coman, Carolyn. What Jamie saw. Front Street , [1995].

Having fled to a family friend's hillside trailer after his mother's boyfriend tried to throw his baby sister against a wall, nine-year-old Jamie finds himself living an existence full of uncertainty and fear.

FIC COR
Cormier, Robert. I am the cheese : a novel. Dell, [1991, 1977].

Note: A young boy desperately tries to unlock his past yet knows he must hide those memories if he is to remain alive.

FIC COR
Cormier, Robert. In the middle of the night. Delacorte Press, [1995].

Sixteen-year-old Denny lives in the shadow of a deadly accident with which his father was connected when he was Denny's age, a disaster for which some of the survivors still blame his father.

FIC COR
Cormier, Robert. Heroes. [1998].

After joining the army at fifteen and having his face blown off by a grenade in the Battle of France, Francis returns home to kill the former childhood hero he feels betrayed him.

FIC COR
Cormier, Robert. Fade. Bantam Doubleday Dell Books for Young People, [1988].

Paul Moreaux, the thirteen-year-old son of French Canadian immigrants, inherits the ability to become invisible, but this power soon leads to death and destruction.

FIC CRE
Creech, Sharon. Granny Torrelli makes soup. Joanna Cotler Books, [2003].

With the help of her wise old grandmother, twelve-year-old Rosie manages to work out some problems in her relationship with her best friend, Bailey, the boy next door.

FIC CRE
Creech, Sharon and Diaz, David. The Wanderer. HarperCollinsPublishers, [2000].

Thirteen-year-old Sophie and her cousin Cody record their transatlantic crossing aboard the Wanderer, a forty-five foot sailboat, which, along with uncles and another cousin, is en route to visit their grandfather in England .

FIC CRE
Creech, Sharon. Walk two moons. HarperCollins, [1994].

After her mother leaves home suddenly, thirteen-year-old Sal and her grandparents take a car trip retracing her mother's route. Along the way, Sal recounts the story of her friend Phoebe, whose mother also left.

FIC CUS
Cushman, Karen. The Midwife's apprentice. Clarion Books, [1995].

In medieval England , a nameless, homeless girl is taken in by a sharp-tempered midwife and, in spite of obstacles and hardship, gains the three things she most wants: a full belly, a contented heart, and a place in this world.

FIC CUS
Cushman, Karen. Catherine, called Birdy. Clarion Books, [1994].

The thirteen-year-old daughter of an English country knight keeps a journal in which she records the events of her life, particularly her longing for adventures beyond the usual role of women and her efforts to avoid being married off.

FIC CUS
Cushman, Karen. Matilda Bone. Clarion Books, [2000].

Fourteen-year-old Matilda, an apprentice bonesetter and practitioner of medicine in a village in medieval England , tries to reconcile the various aspects of her life, both spiritual and practical.

001.9 Dee
Deem, James M and Costantino, Valerie. How to travel through time Avon , [1993 ].

A book that answers questions about time travel, in books and for real.

FIC DEE
Deem, James M. 3 NBs of Julian Drew. New York : Houghton Mifflin Co, [1994].

The journals of a troubled fifteen year old boy who lives with his father and emotionally abusive stepmother and her children after the death of his natural mother years ago.

FIC HAH

Hahn, Mary Downing. Daphne's book. Clarion Books, [1983].

As author Jessica and artist Daphne collaborate on a picture book for a seventh-grade English class contest, Jessica becomes aware of conditions in Daphne's home life that seem to threaten her health and safety.

FIC HOB
Hobbs, Will. Beardance. Avon Books, [1995, 1993].

While accompanying an elderly rancher on a trip into the San Juan Mountains, Cloyd, an Ute Indian boy, tries to help two orphaned grizzly cubs survive the winter and, at the same time, completes his spirit mission.

FIC HOB
Hobbs, Will. Downriver. Bantam Doubleday Dell Books for Young Readers, [1996, 1991].

Jessie and the other rebellious teenage members of a wilderness survival school team abandon their adult leader and try to run the dangerous white water of the Grand Canyon .

FIC HOB
Hobbs, Will. Bearstone. Avon , [1991, 1989].

A troubled Indian boy goes to live with an elderly rancher whose caring ways help the boy become a man.

FIC HOB
Hobbs, Will. Jason's gold. HarperTrophy, [2000, 1999].

When news of the discovery of gold in Canada 's Yukon Territory in 1897 reaches fifteen-year-old Jason, he embarks on a 10,000-mile journey to strike it rich.

FIC HOB
Hobbs, Will. Far North. New York : Avon , [1997, 1996].

After the destruction of their floatplane, sixteen-year-old Gabe and his Dene friend, Raymond, struggle to survive a winter in the wilderness of the Northwest Territories of Canada .

FIC HOL
Holman, Felice. The wild children. Scribner, [1983].

Left behind when his whole family is arrested by soldiers during the dark days following the Bolshevik Revolution, twelve-year-old Alex falls in with a gang of other desperate homeless children, but never loses his hope for a better life.

FIC ERD
Erdrich, Louise. The birchbark house. Hyperion Books for Children, [1999].

Omakayas, a seven-year-old Native American girl of the Ojibwa tribe, lives through the joys of summer and the perils of winter on an island in Lake Superior in 1847.

FIC FLE
Fleischman, Paul. Saturnalia. 1st ed. New York : Harper & Row, [1990].

In 1681 in Boston , fourteen-year-old William, a Narraganset Indian captured in a raid six years earlier, leads a productive and contented life as a printer's apprentice but is increasingly anxious to make some connection with his Indian past.

FIC FLE
Fleischman, Paul. Whirligig. Henry Holt, [1998].

While traveling to each corner of the country to build a whirligig in memory of the girl whose death he causes, sixteen-year-old Brent finds forgiveness and atonement.

FIC FLE
Fleischman, Paul. Mind's eye. Dell Laurel-Leaf, [2001, 1999].

A novel in play form in which sixteen-year-old Courtney, paralyzed in an accident, learns about the power of the mind from an elderly blind woman who takes Courtney on an imaginary journey to Italy using a 1910 guidebook.

FIC FLE
Fleischman, Paul. Seek. Cricket Books, [2001].

Rob becomes obsessed with searching the airwaves for his long-gone father, a radio announcer.

B JAC

Fritz, Jean and Gammell, Stephen. Stonewall. New York : Putnam, [1979].

A biography of the brilliant southern general who gained the nickname Stonewall by his stand at Bull Run during the Civil War.

B ARN

Fritz, Jean. Traitor, the case of Benedict Arnold. New York : Putnam, [1981].

Note: A study of the life and character of the brilliant Revolutionary War general who deserted to the British for money.

PAP G
George, Jean Craighead and Schoenherr, John. Julie of the wolves. Harper & Row, [1972].

While running away from home and an unwanted marriage, a thirteen-year-old Eskimo girl becomes lost on the North Slope of Alaska and is befriended by a wolf pack.

PAP G
George, Jean Craighead. My side of the mountain. Dutton, [1988].

A young boy relates his adventures during the year he spends living alone in the Catskill Mountains including his struggle for survival, his dependence on nature, his animal friends, and his ultimate realization that he needs human companionship.

FIC JAC
Jacques, Brian and Chalk, Gary . Redwall. New York : Philomel Books, [1986].

When the peaceful life in and around ancient Redwall Abbey is shattered by the arrival of the evil rat, Cluny , Matthias, a young mouse, determines to find the legendary sword that will help Redwall's inhabitants.

PAP J
Jacques, Brian and Chalk, Gary . Mossflower. Philomel Books, [1988].

Martin the warrior mouse and Gonff the mousethief set out to find the missing ruler of Mossflower, while the other animal inhabitants of the woodland prepare to rebel against the evil wildcat who has seized power.

FIC JAC
Jacques, Brian and Chalk, Gary . Mattimeo. Philomel Books, [1990].

Mattimeo, the son of the warrior mouse Matthias, learns to take up the sword and joins the other animal inhabitants of Redwall Abbey in resisting Slagar, the fox, and his band of marauders.

FIC JAC
Jacques, Brian and Chalk, Gary . Salamandastron. Philomel Books, [1992].

Urthstripe the Strong, a wise old badger, leads the animals of the great fortress of Salamandastron and Redwall Abbey against the weasel Ferhago the Assassin and his corps of vermin.

FIC JAC
Jacques, Brian and Chalk, Gary . Mariel of Redwall. Philomel Books, [1992, 1991].

The mousemaid Mariel achieves victory at sea for the animals of Redwall Abbey, fighting the savage pirate rat Gabool the Wild, warlord of rodent corsairs.

FIC JAC
Jacques, Brian and Chalk, Gary . Martin the warrior. Philomel Books, [1993].

Captured and enslaved by the corsair stoat Badrang, young mouse warrior Martin vows to end the evil beast's plundering and killing.

FIC JAC
Jacques, Brian and Curless, Allan. The Bellmaker. New York : Philomel Books, [1994].

Worried about his daughter Mariel, Joseph the Bellmaker is led by a dream from Redwall Abbey to Southsward, where he is caught up in the battle between Squirrelking Gael and the vicious Foxwolf Nagru.

FIC JAC
Jacques, Brian and Chalk, Gary . Mossflower. Philomel Books, [1988].

FIC JAQ
Jacques, Brian. Triss : a tale from Redwall. Philomel, [2002].

Triss, Shrog, and Welfo escape from slavery at Riftgard and are pursued across the sea toward redwall by Princess Kurda, prince Bladd, and a band of freebooters who seek the rumored treasure of Brockhall.

FIC JAC
Jacques, Brian and Elliot, David. Loamhedge. Philomel Books, [2003].

While a group of adventurers from Redwall seeks out the ancient abbey of Loamhedge in hopes of curing a young haremaid's paralysis, Redwall is besieged by vermin.

PAP J
Jacques, Brian and Curless, Allan. The long patrol. Philomel Books, [1998].

Tammo, a daring young hare hungry for adventure, is sent with Russa Nodrey, the wandering red squirrel, to join the Long Patrol and defend Salamandastron against the Rapscallion horde.

FIC JAC
Jacques, Brian and Fangorn. Marlfox. Philomel Books, [2000, 1998].

When three young residents of Redwall Abbey go on a quest to recover a tapestry stolen by the Marlfoxes, their bravery removes the curse of these evil animals on a lost island.

FIC JAC
Jacques, Brian and Standley, Peter. Taggerung. New York : Philomel Books, [2001].

A young otter, kidnapped in his infancy and raised as a warrior-thief by a band of vermin, leaves the tribe and goes off to seek adventures of his own.

FIC JAC
Jacques, Brian and Fangorn. Lord Brocktree. Philomel Books, [2000].

The mountain of Salamandastron needs the help of Brocktree the Badger Lord when evil comes in the form of the Blue Hordes of Ungatt Trunn, the Earth Shaker.

FIC LAS
Lasky, Katheryn. Dreams in the golden country : the diary of Zipporah Feldman.

Twelve-year-old Zippy, a Jewish immigrant from Russia , keeps a diary account of the first eighteen months of her family's life on the Lower East Side of New York City in 1903.

FIC LAS
Lasky, Kathryn. Beyond the divide. Macmillan, [1983].

In 1849, a fourteen-year-old Amish girl defies convention by leaving her secure home in Pennsylvania to accompany her father across the continent by wagon train.

FIC LAS
Lasky, Kathryn. Elizabeth I, red rose of the House of Tudor. Scholastic, [1999].

In a series of diary entries, Princess Elizabeth, the eleven-year-old daughter of King Henry VIII, celebrates holidays and birthdays, relives her mother's execution, revels in her studies, and agonizes over her father's health.

FIC LAS
Lasky, Kathryn. A journey to the new world : the diary of Remember Patience

Whipple. Scholastic, [1995].

Twelve-year-old Mem presents a diary account of the trip she and her family made on the Mayflower in 1620 and their first year in the new world.

PAP L
Lasky, Kathryn. Memoirs of a bookbat. Harcourt Brace, [1994].

Fourteen-year-old Harper, an avid reader of fantasy who must hide her books from her fundamentalist parents, comes to realize that their public promotion of censorship threatens her freedom to make her own choices.

FIC LAS
Lasky, Kathryn. The journal of Augustus Pelletier : the Lewis and Clark Expedition. Scholastic, [2000].

A fictional journal kept by twelve-year-old Augustus Pelletier, the youngest member of Lewis and Clark 's Corps of Discovery.

FIC LOW
Lowry, Lois. Number the stars. Houghton Mifflin Co, [1989].

In 1943, during the German occupation of Denmark , ten-year-old Annemarie learns how to be brave and courageous when she helps shelter her Jewish friend from the Nazis.

FIC MAC
MacLachlan, Patricia. Sarah, plain and tall. Harper & Row, [1985].

When their father invites a mail-order bride to come live with them in their prairie home, Caleb and Anna are captivated by their new mother and hope that she will stay.

FIC MAC
MacLachlan, Patricia. Baby. Bantam Doubleday Dell Books for Young Readers, [1993].

Taking care of a baby left with them at the end of the tourist season helps a family come to terms with the death of their own infant son.

FIC PAR
Park, Linda Sue. A single shard. New York : Clarion Books, [2001].

Tree-ear, a thirteen-year-old orphan in medieval Korea , lives under a bridge in a potters' village, and longs to learn how to throw the delicate celadon ceramics himself.

FIC PAT
Paterson, Katherine. Jacob have I loved. Crowell, [1980].

Feeling deprived all her life of schooling, friends, mother, and even her name by her twin sister, Louise finally begins to find her identity.

398.22 PAT
Paterson, Katherine. Parzival : the quest of the Grail Knight. Lodestar Books, [1998].

Note: A retelling of the Arthurian legend in which Parzival, unaware of his noble birth, comes of age through his quest for the Holy Grail.

FIC PAU
Paulsen, Gary. Soldier's heart : Being the story of the enlistment and due service of the boy Charley Goddard in the First Minnesota Volunteers. Delacorte, [1998].

Eager to enlist, fifteen year old Charley has a change of heart after experiencing the physical horrors and mental anguish of Civil War combat.

FIC PAU
Paulsen, Gary. The Transall saga. New York : Delacorte Press, [1998].

While backpacking in the desert, thirteen-year-old Mark falls into a tube of blue light and is transported into a more primitive world, where he must use his knowledge and skills to survive.

B PAU
Paulsen, Gary. Caught by the sea : my life on boats. Delacorte Press, [2001].

Gary Paulsen, author of Hatchet and other adventure novels, tells about his lifelong love of sailing, boats he has owned, and the storms, sharks, and peaceful lagoons he has experienced on his voyages.

FIC PEC
Peck, Richard. A year down yonder. Dial Books for Young Readers, [2000].

During the recession of 1937, fifteen-year-old Mary Alice is sent to live with her feisty, larger-than-life grandmother in rural Illinois and comes to a better understanding of this fearsome woman.

FIC PEC
Peck, Richard. The ghost belonged to me : a novel. Viking Press, [1975].

In 1913 in the Midwest a quartet of characters share adventures from exploding steamboats to "exorcizing" a ghost.

FIC PEC
Peck, Richard. Bel-Air Bambi and the Mall Rats. Delacorte Press, [1993].

Bambi, Buffie, and Brick, three totally cool siblings from Los Angeles , move with their parents to Hickory Fork, a small town terrorized by a high school gang.

FIC PHI
Philbrick, W. R. The Young Man and the Sea. New York : Blue Sky Press, [2004].

After his mother's death, twelve-year-old Skiff Beaman decides that it is up to him to earn money to take care of himself and his father, so he undertakes a dangerous trip alone out on the ocean off the coast of Maine to try to catch a huge bluefin tuna.

FIC PHI
Philbrick, W. R. Freak the Mighty. Scholastic, [1993].

Note: At the beginning of eighth grade, learning disabled Max and his new friend Freak, whose birth defect has affected his body but not his brilliant mind, find that when they combine forces they make a powerful team.

FIC PHI
Philbrick, W. R. Max the Mighty. Scholastic, [1998].

Fourteen-year-old Max helps a younger girl escape from her abusive stepfather by running away with her to the distant town of Chivalry , Montana , searching for her real father.

FIC PHI
Philbrick, W. R. The last book in the universe. Blue Sky Press, [2000].

After an earthquake has destroyed much of the planet, an epileptic teenager nicknamed Spaz begins the heroic fight to bring human intelligence back to the Earth of a distant future.

FIC RYL
Rylant, Cynthia. Missing May. New York : Orchard Books, [1992].

After the death of the beloved aunt who has raised her, twelve-year-old Summer and her uncle Ob leave their West Virginia trailer in search of the strength to go on living.

FIC SAC
Sachs, Marilyn. Call me Ruth. Doubleday, [1982].

The daughter of a Russian immigrant family, newly arrived in Manhattan in 1908, has conflicting feelings about her mother's increasingly radical union involvement.

FIC SPE
Speare, Elizabeth George. The sign of the beaver. Houghton Mifflin, [1983].

Left alone to guard the family's wilderness home in eighteenth-century Maine , a boy is hard-pressed to survive until local Indians teach him their skills.

FIC VOI
Voigt, Cynthia. A solitary blue. Atheneum, [1983].

Jeff's mother, who deserted the family years before, reenters his life and widens the gap between Jeff and his father, a gap that only truth, love, and friendship can heal.

FIC VOI
Voigt, Cynthia. Dicey's song. Atheneum, [1982].

Note: Now that the four abandoned Tillerman children are settled in with their grandmother, Dicey finds that their new beginnings require love, trust, humor, and courage.

FIC VOI
Voigt, Cynthia. Tree by leaf. Atheneum, [1988].

A father's return home following World War I creates problems for his family, especially for twelve-year-old Clothilde, who struggles to accept his horrible disfigurement and opposes her mother's plan to sell Clothilde's land, a peninsula off the coast of Maine , to help pay the family's expenses.

FIC VOI
Voigt, Cynthia. Izzy, willy-nilly. Atheneum, [1986].

A car accident causes fifteen-year-old Izzy to lose one leg and face the need to start building a new life as an amputee.

FIC VOI

Voigt, Cynthia. The Vandemark mummy. Atheneum, [1991].

When, as the new Classics professor at Vandemark College , their father is made responsible for a collection of ancient Egyptian artifacts, twelve-year-old Phineas and his older sister Althea try to find out why the collection is the target of thieves, especially when the mummy disappears.

FIC VOI

Voigt, Cynthia. The wings of a falcon. Scholastic, [1993].

Fourteen-year-old Oriel and his friend Griff flee the slavery of Damall's Island and seek a new life on the mainland, where they face raiding wolfers, rival armies, and other dangers.

PAP Y
Yolen, Jane and Bruce Coville and Coville, Bruce. Armageddon summer. Hartcourt, Brace and Co, [1998].

Marina and Jed meet while accompanying their parents' religious cult, the believers, to await the end of the world atop a remote mountain. There they try to decide what they themselves believe.

297 JEL
Ben Jelloun, Tahar. Islam explained. The New Press, [2002].

Written in dialogue form, as between parent and child, this book explains the Islamic faith with respect to extremism, fundamentalism and terrorism, in an effort to lead children to a deeper understanding of the true face of Muslims around the world. It also contains questions specifically referencing the terrorist attack on the World trade Center on September 11, 2001.

FIC BEN
Bennett, Cherie. Life in the fat lane. New York : Delacorte Press, [1998].

Sixteen-year-old Lara, winner of beauty pageants and Homecoming Queen, is distressed and bewildered when she starts gaining weight and becomes overweight.

FIC CAL
Calhoun, Dia. Firegold. [S.l.]: Winslow Press, [1999].

Jonathan Brae is blamed for the blight destroying the Valley orchards because he has blue eyes, and therefore, must leave his home.

FIC FOX
Fox, Helen. Eager. Wendy Lamb Books, [2004].

Unlike Grumps, their old-fashioned robot, the Bell family's new robot, Eager, is programmed to not merely obey but to question, reason, and exercise free will.

FIC KAD
Kadohata, Cynthia. Kirakira. Atheneum Books for Young Readers, [2004].

Chronicles the close friendship between two Japanese-American sisters growing up in rural Georgia during the late 1950s and early 1960s, and the despair when one sister becomes terminally ill.

FIC LAW

Lawrence, Iain. The wreckers. Bantam Doubleday Dell Books for Young Readers, [1999, 1998].

Shipwrecked after a vicious storm, fourteen-year-old John Spencer attempts to save his father and himself while also dealing with an evil secret about the Cornish coastal town where they are stranded.

FIC LYN
Lynch, Chris. Gold dust. HarperCollins, [2000].

In 1975, twelve-year-old Richard befriends Napolean, a Caribbean newcomer to his Catholic school, hoping that Napolean will learn to love baseball and the Red Sox, and will win acceptance in the racially polarized Boston school.

973.04 SAN
Sandler, Martin W. Vaqueros : America 's first cowmen. H. Holt and Co, [2001].

A look at the Mexican cowmen who were the first to do almost everything associated with American cowboys. Examines the racial prejudice behind the fact that vaqueros have been historically overlooked.

FIC TOL
Tolan, Stephanie S. Surviving the Applewhites. HarperCollins, [2002].

Jake, a budding juvenile delinquent, is sent for home schooling to the arty and eccentric Applewhite family's Creative Academy , where he discovers talents and interests he never knew he had.

FIC WOL
Wolff , Virginia Euwer. Bat 6. Scholastic, [1998].

Sixth grade girls on the local softball teams of two Oregon towns tell of their experiences, which illustrate the communities' attempt to reclaim pre-World War II lifestyles.

FIC PEC
Peck, Robert Newton. A day no pigs would die. ABC-CLIO, [1987, 1972].

To a thirteen-year-old Vermont farm boy whose father slaughters pigs for a living, maturity comes early as he learns "doing what's got to be done," especially regarding his pet pig who cannot produce a litter.

FIC COO
Cooney, Caroline B. Driver's Ed. Delacorte Press, [1994].

Three teenagers' lives are changed forever when they thoughtlessly steal a stop sign from a dangerous intersection and a young mother is killed in an automobile accident there.

PAP C
Cooney, Caroline B. Whatever happened to Janie? Bantam, [1994,1993].

The members of two families have their lives disrupted when a teenage girl who had been kidnapped twelve years earlier discovers that the people who raised her are not her biological parents. Sequel to "The Face on the Milk Carton."

FIC KOR
Korman, Gordon. Son of the mob. Hyperion, [2002].

Seventeen-year-old Vince's life is constantly complicated by the fact that he is the son of a powerful Mafia boss, a relationship that threatens to destroy his romance with the daughter of an FBI agent.

FIC KOR
Korman, Gordon. The Toilet Paper Tigers. Scholastic, Inc, [1993].

When his little league team gets a coach who knows nothing about baseball, seventh grader Corey is dismayed to see the team taken over by the coach's pushy 12-year-old granddaughter.

FIC KOR
Korman, Gordon. The chicken doesn't skate. Scholastic, [1998, 1996].